


Breakfast, If You Guys Eat That Sort Of Thing

by RedBlazer



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Baseball, Car Accidents, Cohabitation, Cooking, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Ginny's accident, Grocery Shopping, Living Together, Male-Female Friendship, Mike pretends to be a Garbage Person, News Media, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship, Protect Ginny Baker At All Costs, Protectiveness, Roommates, The Team Fnds Out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2017-02-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 21:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8550463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBlazer/pseuds/RedBlazer
Summary: “You have literally every sports apparel and shoe company banging down your door, insert joke about Dicks Sporting Goods here when I can breathe again,” Mike said as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his shirt. “and you live in some hotel room like you’re a movie star in the 1920s. That’s crazy. You could live in the Real World house!”Ginny furrowed her eyebrows at Mike and lowered the speed on her treadmill so he had an excuse to turn his down before he had a coronary.“I like the continental breakfast.” Ginny said, shrugging.And that should have been the end of that. It would have been if Mike wasn’t stubborn enough to play ball with two bad knees.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've become complete Mike/Ginny trash in the two days since starting to watch this show. This won't leave my brain. Updates will be sporadic because of school and work!

Mike lives in the kind of house Ginny’s brother used to design on the Sims. It’s all big blocky rooms joined together in what’s probably some kind of expression against the norms of society.

Ginny thinks he bought it just because of the infinity pool.

She knows all of this because he won’t leave her alone about the Hotel Room Thing.

What Hotel Room Thing you might ask? Well, the hotel room thing that wasn’t a problem until Mike just wouldn’t drop it.

“You live in a hotel.” Mike said, panting between breaths on the treadmill next to her. She pulled out her other headphone because he was convinced she couldn't pay attention to two things at once. Even though when she was on the field there were about 20 things to pay attention to and one giant stadium she shouldn’t be paying attention to. 

“Very good, Mike.” She replied, smirking inside at the fact that he was already winded and they were about a quarter or their way into the workout.

Mike scowled at her. She wanted to lean over and turn down his treadmill and tell him it wasn’t a race, but then he would probably challenge her to one in the parking lot.

“You still live in the hotel the team put you up in a month ago.” Mike said, slowly. Okay now she wanted to crank that treadmill up just so he fell off of it.

“We’re on the road half the time.” Ginny said, shrugging.

“You have literally every sports apparel and shoe company banging down your door, insert joke about Dicks Sporting Goods here when I can breathe again,” Mike said as he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the bottom of his shirt. “and you live in some hotel room like you’re a movie star in the 1920s. That’s crazy. You could live in the Real World house!”

Ginny furrowed her eyebrows at Mike and lowered the speed on her treadmill so he had an excuse to turn his down before he had a coronary.

“I like the continental breakfast.” Ginny said, shrugging.

And that should have been the end of that. It would have been if Mike wasn’t stubborn enough to play ball with two bad knees.

\-----

But as it turned out, Mike was the kind of stubborn that liked to rear its ugly head when a person had their guard down. Like when Ginny was going about her business in the bullpen warming up for a home game.

“What about the linens? Do you seriously have someone come in every day and put fresh sheets on your bed? Pick up after you? That’s crazy, rookie.” Mike shouted over the din of fans cheering her on. It wouldn’t stop. At the end of the day it was getting tiring to have people cheer her on for every little thing.

“Seriously?” Ginny exclaimed, aiming a pitch high so that he would have to jump up to get it. But she didn’t want him to exert too much force on his knee so she resolved to only do it one more time if he continued this line of questioning. “No Mike. I make my own bed, clean up my own stuff. I ask the cleaning staff for more towels when I need them. 

Mike just went, “huh,” and let her get on with her warmup.

\-----

Until they went out for dinner that night and he had to go ahead and pose the question to the rest of their crew.

“How long was it before you guys got a place of your own in San Diego?”

Ginny threw a fry at him. “If any of you answer that I’ll leave the team the second I can go free agent. 

So that was the end of that. Though Blip looked concerned.

\-----

A week later Ginny returned from a week on the road to discover every single staff member and guest of the hotel standing on the curb, five fire trucks lined up in front of the building. The staff looked harried, the guests were soaking wet and already murmuring not so silently about their belongings and water damage.

Ginny, who had been living out of a suitcase for years, had everything she owned in the world inside of  a duffle bag and a backpack, both of which were in her possession.

She started walking. If worse came to worse she could crash in the locker room. She’d slept in worse places and the couches were comfy as hell. Ginny didn’t want to bother Amelia, and she didn’t want Amelia going postal on the staff of the hotel, because, hello, she lived there.

“Going my way?” A voice asked along with the purr of a car worth more than every single car Ginny’s family had ever owned put together.

Ginny turned, sighing. Of course. Of course she’d run in to Mike not half a block from where it appeared a small fire had evacuated the entire hotel she was staying in. It couldn’t have been literally anyone else.

And there he was, driving at approximately two miles and hour, keeping up with her on the sidewalk. He had an arm around the passenger seat and the usual shit-eating grin on his face was twice as wide.

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.” Ginny said, trying to come up with a plan. But she was pretty much exhausted from hours on the road. For once Mike looked fresh as a daisy, having slept the whole way home like the old man that he was.

“Well, get in the car, we’ll get to know each other and I won’t be a stranger anymore.” Mike said, a car pulled up behind him, honking. “Go around!” Mike yelled, waving. Of course the driver could see him, Mike was driving his convertible. The car beeped angrily and sped around. Mike stopped the car, putting on the hazard lights and got out. “You’re gonna have to come with me, ma’am.” He said as he circled the car towards her. 

“I’m staying with Blip.” Ginny protested even as Mike took her duffle bag from her and steered her towards the car with a hand on her shoulder.

“Blip and Evelyn have nothing planned but loud sex for the next 6 hours. Their kids are at their grandparents. You don’t want to venture over there unless you want to be in the middle of that sexual sandwich.” Mike said, making perfect sense to Ginny’s tired brain. He even opened the passenger car door and put his bag in the backseat along with hers.

“One night. “ Ginny said, relenting. If someone took a photo of her getting into a teammate’s car it was one thing, if she looked like she was being kidnapped, it would be a whole other story.

“My favorite kind of houseguest.” Mike said, returning to the driver’s seat. Ginny put on her seatbelt, looking over as Mike went to pull the car back onto the road.

“Put on your seatbelt, Lawson.” She said, resting her head against the back of the seat.

She heard him let out a breath in acknowledgement and then it clicked into place. 

She fell asleep about a minute into the drive.

\-----

When they get to the aforementioned Sims house, Mike wakes her up by blasting the horn, because he’s an asshole. When she jolts awake, throwing her arm out in reflex, she hears the sound of a camera phone going off, capturing the surprised look on her face.

“Asshole!” Ginny exclaims, “I’d kneecap you if time hadn’t done it for me.”

Mike snorts and reaches into the backseat to grab his bag and her duffle. They’re parked inside a pristine garage with three other cars (another obnoxious roadster, a giant Escalade SUV and a jeep that’s seen better days) and Ginny’s a little upset she didn’t get to see the house from the outside considering that all of her teammates have described the house as a place designed to film porn or a Michael Bay movie. And honestly, what’s the difference? 

“Come on, you get to help me find the linen closet.” Lawson jerks his head in the direction of a door that leads into the house. Ginny gets out of the car, shouldering her backpack and wishing she had just called an Uber to take her to the nearest Motel 6.

She follows Mike into the house. And yes. Literally everything she’s heard was right. There isn’t a line that doesn’t end in a severe right angle. Practically every wall is made out of glass. From the chrome and marble kitchen she can see across the infinity pool into three other rooms, one of which has a pool table and a tacky slot machine against the wall.

“Your house is truly a manifestation of what goes on in that head of yours.” Ginny says instead of a compliment. She shivers, this place makes her feel like she’s constantly being watched. How have the paparazzi not figured out a way to get a shot into this place. It’s a miracle the whole world hadn’t seen Mike’s junk until the photo shoot.

“Thanks. Just a humble place to hang my hat.” Mike says, throwing his keys down next to a stack of mail sitting on the kitchen counter. He drops his bag on the floor. “I wasn’t kidding about the linen closet. We might legitimately have to call my cleaning woman.”

Ginny waves him off, “I’ll take the couch.” 

Mike spins around, raising an eyebrow at her. “Like hell you will. I’m not answering to the known world when you tweak your shoulder sleeping on my couch and can’t pitch in your next game.” He runs a hand through his beard absently, thinking. “I think it’s by the laundry room.”

“What?” Ginny asks, following after him as Mike takes off into his house.

“Linens.” Mike tells her, “Keep up, rookie.”

It appears the whole house is a ring, with rooms connecting to each other rather than having a hallway like a normal home. As it is, they have to pass through an entertainment room with the largest television Ginny’s ever seen, an office that mostly looks like it’s the place Mike stores his fan mail, and a doorway that leads into a large bathroom. Thankfully the wall to that room is frosted glass. She prays it’s not the kind of glass that can turn transparent at the flick of a switch.

What is she thinking? What does it matter that he has a potentially pervy bathroom? She’s only going to be here one night.

Mike keeps up a string of speech, laying down absurd house rules that Ginny barely registers as he flicks on lights. “If you’re microwaving popcorn, you can do that in the garage. It’s on the far wall, by the Jeep. I’ll show you later. Please don’t leave your towels on the ground unless you plan on walking around the house naked. Oh, and if you touch the thermostat I’ll kick you out on that sweet ass of yours.” 

He’s literally the first guy to talk to her that way and not end up beaned in the head for it. It’s probably because she knows he’s all bluster.

Eventually they reach a stairwell. “That’s the game room, the guest room is above it. You’ll sleep in there. Just gotta find you sheets.”

Once again she tells him she doesn’t need anything, and he looks at her the same way he did when she told him she didn’t know what Fraggle Rock was. Annoyed and a little angry.

“Head on up, I remember where the linens are.” He says, nodding towards the steps. 

It sounds too good to be true, so she climbs, leaving Mike to search his own home for sheets. The guest room is sparse. There’s a huge bed against the far wall, a few boxes are stacked against yet another floor to ceiling window. There’s a bathroom and a small closet leading off of the main area. 

But apart from that, there’s literally nothing. No sheets on the bed, not a single photo or piece of art on the walls. No one has stayed in this room. She bets that even the bed is factory new. 

“Are you decent?” Mike calls a minute later, “Either way I’m coming in!”

Ginny rolls her eyes and meets him at the landing. He’s got a stack of sheets and towels in his hands, her duffle (which she completely forgot about) over his shoulder. Vaguely she thinks she should have remembered to take that with her.

“Thanks.” Ginny says, taking the linens from him. Mike looks between her and then to the bed, running a hand over his beard again. She knows that’s his nervous tick. “I got it from here.” She says, reaching to take the bag from him as well. “Seriously, you’ve done enough.” 

Mike swallows. He nods once. “Yeah. Okay.” He turns around and goes back down the stairs. Ginny goes to shut the door when he calls back up again. “Ginny?”

“Yeah?” She asks, her hand still on the doorknob.

“There’s food in the kitchen if you get hungry.” He says, like an afterthought.

“Okay.” Ginny says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Yeah okay.” Mike calls from farther away down the hallway.

Ginny sets about making the bed with the plush white sheets that Mike handed over. It goes easily enough, and upon investigation, there’s a few down pillows and a matching comforter in the closet on the top shelf. By the time that she has everything in place, she barely has enough energy to brush her teeth, secure her hair into a bun and change into an old t-shirt for bed.

\-----

Someone’s knocking on the door.

Ginny cracks an eye open, reaching for her phone from under the cocoon of blankets she’s made for herself to guard against the bright light streaming through the giant window. Her fingertips grasp the phone and pull it into the cocoon, seeing that it’s 7:45.

Seriously? She had another fifteen minutes to sleep before she had to get up for her morning run. 

“Go away!” Ginny yells, trying to roll over and block out the sound, but it’s nothing but persistent.

There’s the murmur of a voice from the other side of the door, a loud sigh and then the sound of the door opening. “I have my eyes closed! And I’m only looking a tiny bit. But this is going to get cold. I didn’t have a tray with a lid.”

What. The. Hell.

Ginny’s stomach turns over as her brain does that thing where it wakes up in an instant. What the hell is Mike doing in her hotel room?

Only she has curtains in her hotel room because it’s not a hamster house like Mike’s is. Oh sweet lord. She slept in Mike’s house last night. And now for some reason he’s waking her up.

Ginny lowers the covers just enough to peek one eye out.

Mike’s standing at the doorway, dressed for a workout with a tray in his hands. And true to his word, his eyes are closed.

“What’s going on?” Ginny asks, still under the covers.

“Someone told me you’re used to a very particular lifestyle. Continental breakfast and some guy who brings you your slippers.” Mike says, standing there with his eyes still closed. This is too much. 

“You made me breakfast.” Ginny says dumbly.

“Give the girl a prize.” Mike says, holding up the tray a little higher. “Can I open my eyes now?”

“Yeah.” Ginny says, she’s a head peeking out from under a mountain of covers.

Mike blinks at her. “You look cozy.”

“I was cold.” Ginny says, shrugging under the covers.

Mike snorts, stepping forward to drop the tray on the end of the bed. “Dig in. I’ll meet you in half an hour and we can head to the stadium.” He quirks his head to the side, “I have to be honest. I’m curious if you’re a naked sleeper or one of those girls with the matching flannel numbers.”

She throws her pillow at him. He catches it. Of course he does.

“High school t-shirt.” Mike nods, having glanced at the t-shirt now that it’s been exposed. “Surprising.”

“Get out.” Ginny says.

Mike bows, because he’s really strange and then he leaves the room. 

He made avocado toast, bacon, and eggs. Ginny sits on the end of the bed, looking out over the pool as she eats. She watches the small figure of Mike walk from the entertainment room, through to the kitchen where he settles down to the counter and his laptop.

Outside the sky is blue and they have a game tonight. She’s not starting, but she needs the practice in the bullpen, and Amelia will have a great connection for an apartment. 

Mike is a surprisingly great cook, and he only slightly crows when she thanks him for breakfast, bringing down her tray.

One night becomes two, and then three. And it’s only after a week that Ginny tells Mike to stop bringing her breakfast in bed. She joins him in the kitchen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your encouragement has been really lovely. Thanks for all the comments and kudos. Here's a chapter I wasn't planning on posting for a few days. You deserve it.

Mike _lounges_. Literally all the time. There’s no other word for it.

When they’re not working, which is admittedly a small portion of the time, Lawson lounges.

Ginny gets it. It’s his house. The guy’s entitled to lounge.

But he does it literally all the time. Ginny walks from the gym to the kitchen and there he is, on a lounge chair by the pool reading a magazine. Ginny’s fielding calls from press outlets on the treadmill and there’s Mike asleep on a one of those floating inflatable pool things. She’s watching as much footage of the hitters as she can and Mike’s playing Halo.

She gets it. He’s the one who’s been doing this for a long time, but how isn’t he just bursting at the seams with things to do?

“Rookie!” Lawson yells at her from a chair by the pool one day as Ginny laces up her sneakers for yet another run. It’s her day off. She should call her mom and answer some of the thousands of emails that have poured in. “I know you can hear me! Don’t ignore your captain.”

Ginny looks up when Mike starts picking pieces of ice out of his drink and hurling them at the kitchen window. She huffs, one of her sneakers still in her hand.

“I had an great-aunt who used to do shit like that, and we only put up with it because she was 87.” Ginny says once she has the sliding glass door open.

Mike’s eyebrows rise from behind the frames of his glasses. “Sounds like a lady who gets what she wants. I resolve to do that more often.” He gestures with his ice water at the other chair, the one under the umbrella. “Take a seat.”

Ginny hobbles over, still holding on to her shoe. “I’d love to.” She lies. She has too much to do to sit down and do nothing. “But I have way too many things to do. I can’t _lounge_ with you.”

“You make the best words sound terrible, Baker.” Mike scoffs. He takes off his sunglasses, leveling her with a look that broaches her attention. “What exactly do you have to do that Amelia doesn’t have don’t already?”

Ginny points at him with her sneaker. “I have to find an apartment.”

“You got me there.” Mike says in a dry tone. “It’s bad enough I have to see that mug of yours from the mound every game, now I know that you own a night guard.”

She scowls at him.

“Why can’t you go get your computer and look for apartments out here?” Lawson asks. And okay. He’s got a point.

Ginny resists the urge to stamp her foot. She always feels the age difference between them when he points out the obvious. “Because—“ she stammers, “because—“

“Because of the wonderful things he does? You’re off to see the wizard?” Mike sing-songs at her. She’s going to throw her shoe at him any second. “Go get your laptop if you’re so desperate to get out of my house. I have amenities! Water features!” he waves his arm at the pool and the house at large.

“You don’t want me cramping your style here, Lawson.” Ginny tells him. “It’s been what, two weeks? By those standards I’ve destroyed your chances with no less that four women.”

Mike puts his sunglasses back on.

“I’m a big boy, your being here isn’t going to cut into any of my game on or off the field.” He tells her. “What I’m going to tell you is that you’ve gotta take a minute every now and then. If you don’t, it’s going to catch up to you. And then out of the blue, you’re going to have a Grade-A Moment in public. I was lucky, I had mine in the time before iPhones and the Cloud.” Ginny crosses her arms, aware of the shoe in her hand. Is it that obvious that she hasn’t stopped since she got out here? “Just take an hour, okay?”

Ginny sighs, jerking her head at the tablet on Mike’s knee. “What cha’ reading? Playboy?”

“For the articles.” Mike tells her, “I’m reading that Hamilton biography everyone is talking about.”

She shakes her head, “Old man, that’s not the Hamilton they’re talking about.”

Ginny sits down in the chair by Mike’s. She leans down and takes off her other sneaker, flexing her toes inside the florescent yellow athletic socks Amelia told her she has to wear for reasons that are beyond her.

“Oh yeah?” Mike asks, shutting off his tablet and turning to her with an expectant expression.

Turns out that explaining the musical Hamilton to Mike was a huge mistake, not only does he make the entire team choose parts, but he _loves_ Thomas Jefferson. He also refuses to let Ginny be Hercules Mulligan.

And so during their locker room pump-up sing-alongs, she is now and forever Angelica Schuyler.

Al pretends to hate it.

She catches him humming, ‘One Last Time’ in his office.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry I couldn't keep a Hamilton reference out of this fic. I love love love comments and kudos!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, I dropped feelings ALL over this.
> 
> Your feedback has been spectacular. I know I've posted the last three days, and that's in large part to how amazing you've all been. I thought this fandom was very small, and in comparison to other fandoms we are, but you have all been so encouraging and awesome. Thank you for every comment, view, and kudo. I hope you'll be okay with me posting on more of a weekly/every 5ish days so that I can sustain work and school.
> 
> TLDR: Ya'll are awesome.

Mike has garbage taste in cereal.

He also tried to give Ginny a car.

“It’s a loan!” Mike says, waving the keys at her.

There’s a Lexus worth $70,000 in the driveway and Mike is insisting the only cereal they need is Raisin Bran.

The world is falling apart.

“I don’t want your Lexus and I reuse to eat bran before the age of 50!” Ginny yells back. “I want to eat Lucky Charms!”

Mike’s housekeeper wipes down the counters awkwardly between them. And that’s another thing, why does Mike need a housekeeper? How can he not keep this place clean without the help of Mrs. Hernandez? She’s a great lady, but sometimes it seems like Mike is making a mess to justify having her around.

“So you want to keep calling cabs and having Blip pick you up?” Lawson asks, his head in the fridge. “We need whole milk and those eggs I like.”

Mrs. Hernandez rolls her eyes and smiles fondly at Ginny. The nice thing since Mrs. Hernandez found out that Ginny was staying until she could get her life together was that the woman went out of her way to make sure Ginny had her favorite foods in the kitchen, her bathroom always had an extra shampoo and conditioner, and Mrs. Hernandez left a post-it on the bedside table explaining that there _was_ a way to make the massive window in her room opaque. So now she’s able to go about her business without worrying that some drone will be watching her sleep.

“Yeah, Mike. If I want a car, I’ll buy one on my own. Okay?” Ginny shakes her head. “You aren’t in charge of me.”

Mike closes the door to the refrigerator and pretends to slam his head against it repeatedly. “I’m trying to be nice!”

“You’re being patronizing.” Mrs. Hernandez chimes in.

Mike looks at her in shock, the lines of his forehead creasing. “You’re fired.”

She rolls her eyes again. The dishwasher buzzes and she goes to unload it.

“She really called my bluff there.” Mike says, nodding his head a few times. “What’s going on here, Ginny?”

Ginny’s hands flex by her sides. “I just don’t want your car.”

He regards her, like he’s sizing up a batter. “Nope.”

She shrugs. “I’m looking for one of my own.”

He raises an eyebrow. “If you won’t take the car I’m trying to give you, will you drive my shitty Jeep? You literally couldn’t do anything to it that I haven’t already. That car would survive the apocalypse.”

She feels her body temperature start to rise. The crash comes in flickers, almost like a film that’s slowly degrading. She remembers being in the car, nothing, and then sitting on the curb staring at the wreckage. Ginny doesn’t remember her mom getting there, the visit to the hospital, or the ride home that she’s sure she spent curled up in the back seat of their car.

“You okay?” Mike asks, clearly reading her face the way that he does during a game. His job is reading her as much as the player up at bat.

“I’m fine.” She waves the question away. It’s literally the worst thing she could have said. It’s what people say when they are anything but fine.

“No you’re not.” Mike says, crossing his arms over his chest.

Her fingertips feel tingly. Her heart feels too big for her chest.

“Mike.” Mrs. Hernandez butts in, “I’m leaving for the store, and you need to let me know what else you want.”

Thank god for small miracles.

Ginny disappears to her room.

She takes a shower and tries to think about anything else except for the car outside, more accurately she tries not to think about the fact that she couldn’t drive it if she tried, and wouldn’t if she could.

 

\-----

 

To his credit, Mike gives her about seven minutes after the shower shuts off before he knocks on her door.

It was seven minutes of waiting awkwardly at the bottom of the stairs and checking his watch for an appropriate amount of time to pass.

Apparently that amount of time was seven minutes.

Ginny answers the door in a giant hoodie, her usual black compression leggings, and her hair up in a towel.

“I know that you know.” Ginny says instead of a greeting. Mike swallows around the lump in his throat, feeling like even more of a moron than usual.

Mike looks beyond her into the room, it’s neat, there are a few pairs of brightly colored sneakers lined up by the bed. It smells like steam from the shower and the shampoo she uses.

“Yeah,” Mike answers. “I’m an asshole. And I know what happened.”

“But you weren’t thinking.” She puts the words in his mouth, and boy do they fit there perfectly.

“I wasn’t thinking.” He agrees. Usually when he gets into fights with people he gets them gifts, in this case he’s done the opposite. “I got rid of the car.”

Her hands flex by her sides. The sleeves of her sweatshirt are so long that they mostly cover them.

She nods tightly. “I don’t want to drive it.”

Mike was an idiot for not thinking about the car crash that killed her father. Everyone knows about the crash. Ginny’s nothing but persistent about vehicle safety: always wearing her seatbelt and making others do the same. She doesn’t like riding on the bus at night. She shifts in her seat, keeping her eyes on the road out the window. Sometimes she goes up and sits behind the driver to keep him company.

“You don’t have to do anything,” Mike tells her, and then chimes in because he can’t leave well enough alone, “except use your Nike connections to get me Misty Copeland’s phone number.”

“I want Lucky Charms to be a part of this household. Those are my terms.” Ginny says, setting her jaw in that way that just means she will not be trifled with.

“Kids.” Mike scoffs.

He ends up driving to the store himself to pick them up because Mrs. Hernandez was on her way home by the time he called her. Plus the gesture looks better if he’s the provider arriving back at his house with three boxes of Lucky Charms and officially no backbone.

 

\-----

 

He’s watching some documentary about the dustbowl later that night when Ginny shows up. Her hair is still slightly damp, carrying the smell of shampoo across the house. Mike’s about as deep into the couch as possible so she tucks into a comfortable leather chair by his head. Out of the corner of his eye Mike can see her worrying her lip with the seam of her sweatshirt.

They sit there in a comfortable silence while the narrator tells them about the devastation of the depression and the plight of Midwestern farmers.

“I don’t want you to say anything. Because I swear to god, I will leave and never come back.” Ginny says in the darkness lit up by the television. Out the window the pool’s blue lights cast an otherworldly glow. “Say, ‘okay’ so I know you heard me, Lawson.”

Mike hauls himself up to look at her over the arm of the couch. “Okay, Baker.” He says, plopping back down. His shoulder protests weakly.

“I can’t drive.” She said it slowly.

Mike pops back up over the arm of the couch.

She holds up a finger at him, narrowing her eyes. “I said don’t say a word, Lawson.” Mike huffs and makes a motion to lock his lips and throw away the key. “I can’t drive a car. And I don’t really want to.” She admits. She blinks kind of rapidly, her eyes on the screen and not on him. “You can talk now.”

Mike stays where he is, his arm braced on the arm of the couch, assessing her. This 23 year old woman who has already faced more media scrutiny than anyone he knows. If he were her, he already would have been neck deep in more than a dozen bad decisions. All she’s done is jump into a pool wearing an expensive dress.

She’s allowed to have a weakness.

“You don’t have to drive, Baker. Okay?”

She nods tightly, “Can you please change the channel to something interesting.”

Mike lays back down, “My house. My dustbowl. My rules.” But he flips the channel over to TBS, they’re showing Forrest Gump for the 100th time that weekend.

They settle down and watch the movie, even with the commercial breaks.

Mike doesn’t really pay attention. He’s weighing what he said to her in his head.

What he said was ‘You don’t have to drive, Baker’, but what he meant was he would drive her wherever she needed to go.


	4. Chapter 4

Four things happened very quickly over the course of a week:

1: Everyone on the team found out that Ginny was officially living rent-free in Mike’s guest room. Because of course they did.

\-----

It didn’t take much, just the fact that she and Mike leave and arrive at exactly the same time every day. There are only so many times that Ginny claimed she needed to talk to him about something.

Also, she thought that the locker room would dissolve into dudes offering up their places for her to stay so long as they got to enjoy the same benefits that Mike does.

Instead, it turned into an intervention.

Blip showed up at her locker room to have a talk with her, “I just need to make sure you know what you’re doing.” He said, leveling her with a serious look. “You can always come stay at our place.”

Ginny shook her head, not bothering to look up from where she was oiling her glove carefully. “I’m not going to impose on your home, Blip. Besides, this is temporary.”

“But you’ll impose on Mike’s house?”

She scoffed. “Mike doesn’t live in a house, he lives in a fish tank. He has more room than he knows what to do with. We barely see each other.”

Blip sighed, “You aren’t—“

“No. Never.” Ginny said, “Mike has defied all expectations. He’s been the perfect gentleman. Except for the time I caught him with a moisturizing face mask on and he threatened to have me thrown off the team.”

“The guy’s got dry skin.” Blip shrugged, as though he and Mike had discussed this very situation.

\------

Meanwhile, most of the team cornered Mike and told him in no uncertain terms that they would completely mutiny against their captain if anything happened to Baker.

“You’ve got to be kidding?” Mike exclaimed. “Also, who’s been here longer? You should all be asking if she’s taking advantage of me. I’m the one who’s irresistible to women.”

Turns out it was one thing to joke about Ginny dating Drake and a whole other thing to find out she was living—rent free, mind you—in Mike’s awesome house, in a situation where neither of them are having sex, and Mike now knows more about the temperament of curly hair than he ever wanted to.

Still, they looked at him like he was an old creep.

Ginny walked out of her changing room, Mike ran to her. “Ginny, tell everyone nothing is happening at my house except for you running up my water bill.”

“I’m not the only part of that problem.” Ginny said, typing out a text on her phone, half paying attention.

The team looked at him like they were getting ready to get the torches and pitchforks.

“Not like that!” Mike yelled, feeling his cheeks go hot. “Water features!” he yelled, throwing his arms up in the air and storming into the physical therapy room for no reason. He would stay in there for an hour before the mob dissipated.

\-----

Both Evelyn and Amelia cornered Mike on separate occasions.

Evelyn revealed her long time love for both Ginny as a person, and true crime books as a pastime. She told him what she’d learned from the mistakes of the murderers in her books if Mike so much as touched a lock of hair on Ginny’s head.

Amelia asked him if he remembered what ever happened to the guy from Dawson’s Creek. When Mike told her he had no idea, she jabed him in the shoulder with one of her pointy nails and said, “Exactly.”

He’s going to need Witness Protection.

\-----

2: The press found out thanks to a fan camped outside of Mike’s house and their baker’s dozens of followers spread it like wild fire. Because of course they did.

\-----

Within an hour every news outlet in the San Diego area had a van camped outside of Mike’s house. And it was within that moment that a sinking feeling radiated through Ginny. Because the jig was up. She was going to have to leave now.

“Ten years ago I would have gone out there shirtless and turned the sprinklers on them.” Mike said, leaning against the fridge, a bowl of cereal in his hands.

“Ten minutes from now you just might.” Ginny joked, she waved him away from the fridge to get milk out along with Lucky Charms from the cabinet.

“And go to jail for inciting a riot with my Dad Bod? I think not.” He said, indicating himself, clad in an old ratty shirt and basketball shorts from the first Bush presidency.

Ginny shook her head. “That’s not what Dad Bod means.”

“Well, Ms. Baker, what kind of body do I have then?” Mike asked, knowing he had her in one of those traps where she either had to compliment him or take him down a notch.

She tried not to think about the posters on her childhood bedroom wall. She certainly wouldn’t call _that_ a Dad Bod. Okay, she had to stop.

“I’m waiting.” Mike told her, raising an eyebrow.

He ended up waiting forever because that was when the phone rang and Amelia told them the party was over.

\-----

3: Amelia went into damage control mode, but at this point there was no way to put the toothpaste back in the tube. Ginny packed up her bags and moved into a swanky house on the beach. It used to be Jude Law’s place or something. Amelia got to borrow it as a favor involving a third nanny scandal. Because of course she did.

\-----

He was not moping.

Mrs. Hernandez told Mike that he was moping, but he definitely wasn’t.

He _was_ wandering his own home at odd hours of the day and night, absently bothered by the lack of noise. Not that Ginny was loud, but he was getting used to the sounds of other people. Phone calls from the other room, music from the gym, and the occasional rattling of pots and pans in the kitchen the exactly only time Mike let her cook in his kitchen.

Mike focused on his time at the stadium. He made sure to get to all of his workouts on time. A car dropped Ginny off a little later than he knew she liked. But now she was living half an hour away from Petco Park, so it was hard to get the working parts in order.

Either way he got his time in with Ginny before the rest of the team showed up for their work. Lazy bastards.

“I have a wine cellar.” Ginny told him absently. “And a lot of photos of Jude Law.”

Mike looked up from the floor. His trainer had him working on his stretching more, hopefully that would cut down on the pain in his knees. Ginny was on the mat next to him, stretched out over her own legs, folded like a piece of paper, easy as anything.

It was really rude.

“Does Jude Law’s house have not one, but two wet bars?” Mike had to defend his own house.

“I think you’re jealous.” Ginny said raising an eyebrow.

Mike heaved himself up off the floor, his knees protesting at the fast movement. He was only half way though his stretching. “Pft. I hope you never turn on a black light in that place. It would light up like the Fourth of July.”

“Ugh.” Ginny scrunched up her face in response. “That’s so gross.”

“I’m just being honest.” Mike said, holding out his hands in a gesture that said ‘don’t blame me’. He headed over to the treadmill and prepares for the pain.

\-----

4: In less than a week everything went to hell.

Because of course it did.

\-----


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with some difficult elements, check the end notes for warnings.
> 
> Nothing violent happens, but some might find it triggering. I have no intention of making this story super angsty or anything, everything will be okay.

It’s not all Girl Scouts and people who look up to Ginny. There are some hateful, weird, and disturbing individuals in the world.

And some of them send Ginny mail.

It’s not a majority, just a very alarming minority of her correspondence that Amelia holds on to, ‘Just in case.’ She told Ginny the first time she got a death threat.

Aren’t those words she never thought she’d have to say.

Tensions are high regardless of the threats and creepy guys who now have the leaked photos of her. Practically every question in the press room involves her and Mike. Some of the reporters are smart enough to ask a question that only insinuates that their mentor/mentee relationship may be more. But others straight up ask if Ginny’s sleeping with Mike because he’s her captain it’ll garner her more favor.

Amelia is in there within a fraction of a second.

“Ms. Baker is done answering questions, today.” She tells the press as Ginny gets up from her chair and makes to leave the pressroom. “And in the future, the first question asked about my client’s personal life will result in the end of the press conference.” She pins one of the reporters with a look, “That one was aimed at you, George.”

She steers Ginny from the room and into the hallway where some of the other players are waiting to go in after her. Blip pats her on the shoulder, “I guess I’ll have to release sexts between Evelyn and I until this blows over.”

Ginny makes a motion like she’s stopping herself from throwing up.

“What? We’re a creative couple with excellent vocabularies.” Blip jokes.

Ginny rolls her eyes, looking forward to going home and laying back to enjoy the silence. Plus, hello, dinner. She’ll have to have the driver stop somewhere to pick up dinner on the way. There are still no groceries in the house.

Mike’s already got his bag, heading to the garage.

“Hey.” He says, stopping her. “You need a ride to your place?”

Ginny quirks her head to the side. She’s been using a driver service every day for nearly a week.

“Nah. I’m good.” Ginny tells him, shaking her head.

“Come on.” Mike raises an eyebrow. He should be exhausted after the game they just played. His hair is damp from the shower, brushed back from his forehead but a lock of it keeps falling across his forehead. “I’m secretly not so secretly curious what Jude Law’s house looks like on the inside.”

Ginny sighs. “You can do a five minute walk through. No black light jokes and you can’t try on any of his clothes.”

She doesn’t mention the groceries. Mike would probably freak out over the fact that there’s no food in the house.

Mike drives her home in his giant SUV, with tinted windows so that the press outside can’t take photos of them. She gives him the directions, down a few winding roads until they get to the drive that leads to a private drive with mostly empty houses every couple hundred meters. Ginny can hear the crash of waves faintly even in the car with the windows rolled up.

He slows down, approaching the driveway that Ginny motions to. A large gate stands guard to the house. Mike stops the car completely, his face dissolving into a look of concern.

Ginny’s stomach drops at that look. That’s the ‘oh shit’ look, which is usually followed by Mike throwing himself out of or into the path or a player running for home base.

“What’s up?”

Mike undoes his seatbelt, reaching behind the seat to retrieve something from the back.

“Stay here.” He tells her, making his voice an absolute command. He hauls something out of the backseat.

“Jesus, is that a gun?” Ginny exclaims.

“Just stay here.” He says, getting out of the still running car and shutting the door behind him. In the moment that the door is open, Ginny hears the pulsing bass of music playing somewhere.

Mike flicks on the flashlight that must have been in the back, approaching the gate. Ginny watches, pulling out her phone just in case. Should she be calling 911?

Mike reaches out and touches the black box next to the gate where she would normally have the driver punch in a code that would let them inside. Only, the whole thing is a mess of wires. Someone pulled the whole keypad out of the case.

That more than anything else disturbs her. Fans would probably just take a photo of themselves beside the gate or leave her weird gifts that they would accidentally run over in the morning.

Now he’s reaching out and pushing the gate, it swings open easily on its own, several scrape marks on the edge look like someone pried it open with a crowbar.

Okay. Now’s the point she should call 911.

The house looms up the short driveway, every single light in the house is on and shining out. The music is coming from the house. She left both things off, just like her dad taught her not to run up the electric bill.

The front door is wide open.

Mike walks calmly back to the car.

“You get three options. Stay with me, stay with Amelia, or stay with Blip and Evelyn. You aren’t going back into that house tonight.” Mike says, his voice measured and monotone. He’s putting the car in reverse and backing out of the driveway like something out of an action movie. He wraps his arm around the back of Ginny’s seat, leaning over to see better out of the back window.

Ginny feels the panic begin to settle in. Her heart triples in time. The world begins to narrow to one point and static fills her ears. All of the possibilities of what could have happened, what might still happen fill her head.

“Baker.” Mike says, still steering with one hand as he backs down the long lane that leads to the house. “You gotta talk to me.”

Ginny shakes her head. Her hand clenches around the solid weight of her phone. She has to stop before she strains something. Her breathing has become short gasps that seem like they only go in.

Mike takes her silence as what it is, the inability to speak.

“We’re gonna call the police and they’ll check it out, but I’m getting you out of here.” He tells her. They reach the main road, Mike puts the car in drive and they take off down the street at a rate much higher than the speed limit. The car’s beeping at him, it has been since he put it in reverse. Mike reaches over and puts on his seatbelt.

He’s driving with two hands on the wheel, which Ginny finds herself absently focusing on.

“You sound like a deflating balloon.” Mike tells her, reaching out. “Can you breathe with me?” his hand blindly touches the top of her head, fingers curling into her hair, touching her scalp. “Baker.” Mike says, and then again a little more loudly, “Baker. You gotta breathe—long breaths. Can you go along with me?”

She nods her head under his hand. She doesn’t want to be in this car. But she doesn’t know where else in the world she could deal with this without the fear of someone capturing it for public consumption. As if seeing her photos wasn’t enough, now the public could see her having a complete panic attack.

“Hey,” Mike says, shaking her head a little to get her attention. “I can’t stop the car, but I need you to try and pay attention? Can you do that?” she nods again. “Okay, good girl. Breathe in with me?” he breaths in exaggeratedly, over the course of a few seconds. Ginny lets the air expand her lungs to capacity. She waves her hand towards the wheel, and Mike plants both of his hands back on it, leaving her without contact, but in the knowledge that he’s in full control of the car. He lets out a bit of a laugh, “Okay, you’re acting like the old you, now let the air out, like you’re blowing out birthday candles.”

Ginny puffs out her cheeks, forcing the air from her chest. She realizes along the way she’s closed her eyes. When she opens them Mike is glancing at her every few seconds. Out the window, unfamiliar businesses pass by as a blur. She feels dizzy.

“Woah.” Mike says, seeing the drop of her eyes, “Nope, you gotta stay with me here. Put your head between your knees and just try to concentrate on your breathing.”

She doesn’t have the energy to wonder where he learned all of this. She just bends over and lets her head rest between her knees, literally the worst position she could be in the event of a crash, but if she can’t breathe that isn’t really going to matter.

Ginny keeps pulling in deep breaths and letting them go when Mike tells her to. Eventually they pull into a grocery store parking lot.

Mike solves the problem of who to call first by deciding on Amelia.

Ginny can only hear his side of the conversation punctuated by pauses she knows are Amelia going into damage control mode.

“Someone broke into Ginny’s place.” Mike says, turning on the overhead light in the car. Ginny registers the dim light, keeps her head where it is. “Because I drove her home. The gate’s busted and the front door was wide open, music blasting. How you have her living in a house without a working security system—“ There’s a pause as he’s cut off. Mike puts his hand on her shoulder again, reaching into the backseat again. “I don’t care someone told you it was secure, clearly it wasn’t.”

Mike urges Ginny to sit up again, offering her a black Nalgene bottle full of water he must have had in his backpack. Ginny takes it gladly, her throat is parched. “Small sips.” Mike tells her, his hazel eyes intense and narrowed as he looks at her. “Not you, Amelia. I’ve got Baker here and she’s terrified.” He shakes his head and points at the water when Ginny looks at the phone in question. She can’t talk to Amelia like this. It’s hard enough to articulate words. Ginny wouldn’t be able to do it over the phone.

“I couldn’t tell.” Mike says, “Didn’t see anyone but who knows? I’d _hope_ it was a Jude Law groupie, but the reality is that Ginny’s the bigger celebrity at the moment.” His mouth quirks to the side at that. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m gonna find her a place to sleep tonight—Blip’s where? Jesus. Okay.” There’s another pause. “Yeah. I said okay. We’re good. My place is Fort Knox. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Mike hangs up the phone and carefully sets it down on the dashboard. There’s a Whole Foods across the parking lot and only ten other cars in the lot along with theirs. She didn’t realize how late it was.

“Amelia’s calling the police, the security company that’s supposed to be monitoring the system, and probably the FBI.” Mike says, he runs a hand through his beard. “How are you doing?”

Ginny swallows around the lump in her throat. “Do you think it was me?” he seems to get it even though she can’t articulate it. She hates how small her voice comes out. She hasn’t felt this overwhelmed and unmoored since her first game in the league.

“Could have been about you.” Mike says. He settles back in his seat and turns fully towards her. “But the good thing is that you’re not there now. No one’s gonna follow us. We’re safe.” He’s got those lines between his eyebrows going full force. “Are you hungry?” he asks.

“Yeah.” She tells him. And to think an hour ago that was the biggest problem she had.

“Well, you’re in luck. Mrs. Hernandez left me a pan of empanadas in the freezer and I’m still drowning in Lucky Charms if you’re interested.” He says, half of his mouth quirking up. “Amelia’s gonna be up all night. Blip took off to meet Evelyn at her parent’s house. Will you come back to my place?”

She sighs, the first voluntary respiratory action she’s made since they rolled up to her—Jude Law’s—house. Mike reaches over her to the glove compartment where he pulls out a small pack of tissues, which he hands to her. Ginny stares at them blankly before registering the cool feeling of two lines drying down her face.

God, she’s been crying this whole time.

“Don’t say anything to the team.” She says, scrubbing her face with a tissue while he looks on.

“I might be an asshole, Baker, but I would never do that.” He reassures her. “You ready to go home?”

She nods, trying to settle back into her seat as much as possible. Her head feels too big for her body and her face is swollen. She must look like a mess.

“Hey.” Mike says. And then there’s the warm contact of his hand lifting her chin and turning her head towards his face. She wants to look down, avoid her bloodshot eyes. But he won’t have it.

Mike Lawson is the kind of guy who will kick your ass on the field until you deliver what he expects from you. He’ll call Ginny’s hardest pitches, challenge her, argue with her, and defend her if need be. And right now he’s demanding that she look him in the eye, which she begrudgingly does.

“It’s gonna be okay.” He tells her, and that’s not something he can really assure her.

But it feels good to hear.

So she nods and keeps an eye on him as he turns off the light inside the car and pulls back onto the road. He drives them home.

Ginny doesn’t realize she thought of it as home for a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: stalkers, someone breaks into Ginny's house (she isn't home), and panic attacks.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I love comments and Kudos. You are all the best fandom.


	6. Chapter 6

Mike’s used to a defiant Ginny Baker. Defiant of convention and expectation. But the girl in his passenger seat is downright agreeable. She’s quiet on the way home, doesn’t make a move to turn on the radio, so they ride in silence. Mike keeps his hands firmly planted on ten-and-two on the steering wheel as per the Ginny Baker School of Driver Safety.

He’s used to seeing her guarded against the world, whether with the baseball cap pulled down over her face, or the set of her jaw that screams ‘you cannot break me’. She’s never looked younger to him than right now, curled up in the passenger seat of his car. She looks like a 23-year-old girl who has just faced danger.

To his credit, Mike has resolved to stay at his place tonight and not comb through Ginny’s rental like he’s on CSI for any clues as to who scared the shit out of them tonight. He’s also willing to bet the whole team would take up arms to search the area if he called them. Everyone likes to joke about Ginny being a round peg in a square hole, but Mike doesn’t know a single person who wouldn’t brawl for her on the field if it came to it.

When they pull up to his house, there’s already a police car sitting outside at the curb. He bets Amelia had some _words_ about the protection her client needed. He stops to have a brief conversation with the officer. Yes, they’re okay. No, they didn’t see anyone. No, Ginny’s not aware of any current stalkers. Yes, he’ll sign a ball for the guy’s kid. Ginny—not so much.

The officer tells Mike he’ll be outside all night if there’s any kind of problem. Mike hopes the only problem will involve reheating the food in his freezer.

“How about dinner?” Mike asks, leveling Ginny with what he hopes is a encouraging look. He doesn’t want her to know just how freaked out he had been seeing the door wide open like that, what was going through his head on the panicked drive back to the main road. He tries not to think about would have happened if the game hadn’t run late because of the extra innings.

“Sounds good.” Ginny says, and she looks just wary. There’s no other word for it.

“I’m not going to ask you if you’re okay, because frankly _I’m_ freaked out and that really says something.” Mike rambles. He turns on the oven and pulls the empanadas out of the freezer.

She’s staring blankly at the clock on the wall. It’s nearly midnight. They’re going to have to be up in seven hours.

Mike tries cheering her up, switches to being pissed at what happened, and finally settles on silence as well. They sit there in the kitchen for twenty minutes while the empanadas warm up in the oven.

“s good.” Ginny tells him around a mouthful of food. Of course they are, Mrs. Hernandez is the only woman who’s never broken his heart. There’s a beat and then Ginny puts down her food. She steeples her fingers on the counter in front of her. “I’m going to say something, and like many other times during our friendship, I don’t want you to say anything in return. Don’t make it weird.”

Well that’s going to be a struggle.

“Okay.” Mike replies, beginning to become concerned. He decides that stuffing nearly a whole empanada into his mouth would prevent him from saying anything stupid or probably offensive to whatever Ginny needs to tell him.

“I need to sleep in your bed tonight.” She says. There’s utter silence in the kitchen apart from Mike having to slap himself on the chest to clear his throat from the threat of choking.

She didn’t say ‘want’. She said she needed to. There are very few things a person needs in life. Water, air, food, and security. Right now that’s what she needs. A decade ago Mike wouldn’t have thought about that.

He doesn’t even know if he would have thought of that six months ago.

Ginny blinks those huge eyes of hers at him and something solid slides into place. He’s protective. Sure, Mike knows he would defend Ginny on the field, off of it to the press, and in the locker room against the team if there was a disagreement. But this is a very different situation.

This has no bearing on baseball. This is his friend and teammate, who at this moment might very well fear for her life and safety.

He breaks the rule and he talks before he’s allowed to.

“Of course.” Mike says, allowing himself this moment to be serious. No jokes about how this was his plan all along, or how she would have been cramped sleeping in bed with Blip and Evelyn.

Ginny purses her lips, rolling together in thought. She nods her head softly once. “I’m tired, Mike.”

And once again, no jokes.

“Alright, lets go to bed.”

 

\------

 

Mike’s room is just like the rest of his house, paired down to the sleek minimum with a few exceptions. Namely a few bobbleheads tucked away on a shelf by the corner. There are two things of vitamins on one of the bedside tables.

“I wasn’t planning on having company.” He says, rushing forward to grab a few shirts and socks off the floor. He tosses them into a hamper just inside the dark closet. The bed’s unmade but the room smells like fresh linens. Plus Ginny knows that Mrs. Hernandez changes the sheets every Wednesday and it’s Friday night.

Mike’s tablet is on the bedside table along with a pair of glasses resting on top. Ginny doesn’t say anything, but Mike catches notice of her gaze.

“My eyes get tired.” He says, shrugging lamely.

“I didn’t say anything.” Ginny says, pointing at her own face, “Nightguard. Don’t forget.”

Mike snorts, walking into the closet without bothering to turn on the light. He returns a moment later with a tshirt and shorts in his hands, which he hands to her.

“You’re a tshirt sleeper.” He tells her, one side of his mouth hitching up in that knowing way.

“Thanks.” Ginny says.

“There’s an extra toothbrush under the sink.” Mike says, pointing lamely towards the bathroom.

She takes the hint, walking to the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. Unsurprisingly, just like everything else in this house, the bathroom is impressive and somehow flaunting it just enough to not be douchey. She’ll have to ask him about the shower large enough for ten people later.

Oh, and the Jacuzzi tub.

When she emerges a little later, Mike’s sitting on the end of the bed, texting furiously. He looks up expectantly at her, “How’s it fit?”

Ginny looks down at the huge Homerun Derby t-shirt from over a decade ago and the old gym shorts she’s wearing. She’s swimming in them.

“A little small.” She says flatly.

He smiles faintly. “There she is.” he jokes, “Personally, I could have taken a bit more of a vacation from that sarcastic tendency of yours.”

Mike locks his phone and goes to plug it into the wall. Ginny’s own phone is shoved somewhere in the depths of her backpack. She threw it in there at some point, and having it would only create more questions.

Should she call her mom and brother?

What about Blip?

If she lets him know what happened, he’ll be on his way instantly, and they all have to play tomorrow. She can’t have him blowing the game on her account.

Someone breaks into her house and she’s worried about the game.

Ginny really is her father’s daughter.

“I’m gonna go get changed, put on something a little more comfortable, don’t get any ideas about rifling thought all of my drawers.” Mike says, pointing at the bedside table.

“Oh yeah, because I need to steel your calcium supplements and Everyday Men’s vitamins.” Ginny gestures to the two bottles sitting on the bedside table.

Mike frowns slightly, probably realizing that she’s never going to let this go.

 

\-----

 

Mike emerges from the bathroom having changed into actual pajamas for the first time in years. It wouldn’t do to rescue Ginny from danger only to traumatize her with the idea of sleeping in his bed while he was naked.

And that was the weirdest part of this whole scenario.

Ginny Baker’s in his bed.

What a sentence.

What a crazy sentence he never thought he would think.

And a sight he never thought he would see.

What a sight it is, with all of her hair piled up on top of her head, his white comforter pulled up to her waist, flipping though an old copy of Sports Illustrated he left hanging around.

“Hey, I’m on this one.” Ginny says mildly, showing him the cover.

She’s getting a deeper glimpse into his life than Mike ever anticipated.

“Are you? I didn’t get a chance to read it. They send me those for free.” Mike says, waving a hand. She doesn’t know that he wrote an email to the editor about the fact that the reporter let it slip in the article that Ginny had received and turned down the offer to be in the swimsuit issue. Like she didn’t have enough of an problem being accepted as a serious athlete.

“Then why is there a bookmark here?” Ginny asks, pulling a Post It from between the pages.

“How about bed then?” Mike exclaimed awkwardly, “It’s past your bedtime and I’m old. I need my rest.”

Ginny puts the magazine back. “Old man.” She mutters to herself as Mike sits down on the side of the bed heavily.

Now that they’re not on the field or panicking about what happened at Ginny’s place, he can finally focus on the radiating pain coming from his left knee. Typically he would have come home and rested it, taken a dip on the tub, and then hightailed it to bed, but that wasn’t on the menu for Mike tonight.

Mike reaches for his trusty bottle of Aspirin from the bedside table, shaking out a few tablets. He swallows them down dry as water would have to be procured from the bathroom and he’s really beat.

He reclines into the bed as casually as possible when in reality this is weird as hell.

Groupies don’t stay over long enough for Mike to consider their place sleeping next to him.

Both he and Amelia were riding the tail end of post-divorce energy and kind of fell into whatever they had at random. One time they slept at a diagonal.

Ginny rolls over onto her side, facing him. God, she even does that thing where she tucks her hand under her own head like an orphan in 19th century literature. “Thank you for doing this.” She tells him, her voice is small in the quiet of his bedroom. He’s more aware of the lack of distance between them than ever before.

“Well my plan was to kick you out of my car but I couldn’t have that on my conscience.” Mike replies.

“You’re such an asshole.” She tells him, rolling her eyes.

Mike leans over and shuts off the light, throwing them into the near darkness. He left the pool light on, and a dim blue glow radiates through the window beside the bed.

“This okay?” Mike asks, laying on his back with his hands crossed over his chest, trying to remain casual.

Ginny makes a content noise, so he takes that as her response and tries to settle more comfortably into the bed. The sheets below him making a gentle rustling sound.

“If you turn out to snore, I’m kicking you out of my bed.” Mike says to the darkness.

But there’s no response, because when he looks over, Ginny’s face has relaxed into the putty-like way that it does when she naps on the bus. All the tension has left her now.

That’s good. Meanwhile Mike’s reminding himself that literally the worst thing that could happen would be waking up wrapped all around her. Because:

Then she would know he enjoys that kind of thing;

Amelia and Evelyn would actually murder him;

That’s not what she asked for;

And so Mike closes his eyes and tries to mentally will himself to stay in the exact same position when he’s asleep.

Sleep comes after a little while, and he doesn’t dream—which is nice. They both just rest.


	7. Chapter 7

People always describe flash bulbs as blinding, casting everything but the person in the photo into darkness. But Ginny’s always focused on how those flashes cause everything in the room to light up for one brilliant moment. So it’s not just her up at the podium in the dimly lit press room. The 30 or so reporters and their cameras make her all to aware of Amelia, Al, Eliot, Oscar, and Mike standing against the back wall. Each of them look like they physically have to hold onto themselves:

Amelia with her arms crossed over her chest, clasping onto her own shoulders,

Al continuously rubbing the back of his head in a circular motion,

Eliot with an iPhone between his palms, his fingers clasped,

Oscar covering his eyes with his hand before is slides down his face,

And Mike, one arm crossed over his chest, holding onto the opposite bicep, while his free hand basically covers the entire lower half of his face.

Meanwhile Ginny’s wearing a pair of Amelia’s Lulu Lemon leggings and a t-shirt Amelia took from the gift shop downstairs before it was open. Her hair is still damp from the shower she took a few hours ago, she can feel the neckline of the shirt wicking away moisture.

Before her, on the podium, is a crisp sheet of paper where Amelia’s written her statement to the press. It’s short. Concise. And Amelia’s made sure that there will be no questions afterwards.

They had to do this now, not only because whoever broke into her house needs to get caught, but because now there are rumors swirling that Ginny stayed over at Mike’s out of something other than fear.

“At approximately 11 p.m. last night,” Ginny reads from the paper, listening as even more cameras go off. “I arrived at my home to discover the gate forced open. Inside the house, evidence was discovered that the assailant went through my belongings, taking several of my personal effects along with a painting belonging to the owner.” She takes a sip of water from the glass Amelia left on the podium.

“Fearing for my own safety, my teammate Mike Lawson and I drove to his home so that police could conduct a search of my property. They discovered no one in the house, however there was evidence that more than one person was involved. I am taking steps to ensure my own safety as the police conduct an investigation into this matter. Thank you.” Ginny nods her head, giving a look up to the reporters, which they take as their cue to get their last shots and yell questions at her even though they know that there are no questions.

It’s one question in 30, but when she hears it, it rings out with such clarity that her head snaps towards the person who asked it. He’s middle aged, a pot belly falling over the top of his pants, in his hand is a recorder stretched out toward her.

“Ginny, how do you feel now that your privacy has been invaded for the second time in four months?” He doesn’t even yell it. But somehow it cuts through the noise like a knife.

Against the back wall, Amelia goes stiff as Ginny plants her hands over the edge of the podium, unmoving from her spot instead of leaving the stage.

“How do I feel now that my privacy has been compromised for the second time?” Ginny asks, nodding at the guy. “If that’s your question, mine would have to be the following: Can you be more specific?”

 

\-----

 

Al drops his head into his hands.

Amelia gets two steps towards the podium before Mike grabs her arm, pulling her back. “Let her go.” He tells her in a quiet, but firm voice.

Eliot already has the phone up and recording.

Oscar goes, “Oh, shit.”

 

\-----

 

The journalists go quiet as Ginny feels the words bubbling up from her throat.

“I’m not sure if your talking about the time most of the free world saw private photos of me, meant for someone I was in a relationship with at the time. Was my privacy compromised the time that someone thought they could humiliate me by plastering my ass across the internet? I think you’re talking about that time. But it’s hard to tell because every time I’m photographed in the vicinity of someone with a penis—which is _all_ the time­­—every pundit and magazine poses the same question: Who is Ginny Baker sleeping with?” Ginny feels the wood of the podium cutting into the palms of her hands. She forces them to relax.

The reporter looks like he’s mortified, the color draining from his face.

“Because I have to be sleeping with someone, right? It’s only natural, a young, pretty girl like me surrounded by professional athletes—hell, Drake wants me to come to his parties! Never in my life have I seen a professional athlete—and I _am_ a professional athlete—get asked the kinds of questions that I do. Someone asked me if I thought that having my period would impact my game. I don’t have to ask if you can believe that, because you were in the room when it happened.” She knows she needs to end this right now, before she well and truly goes on the rant that has been building for years.

“But if you’re asking how it feels to have my privacy compromised for the second time in four months, I’ll tell you that you’re estimate is _way_ off. I’ve had to switch phones seven times. Reporters have showed up at my mother’s home. People take photos of me _all_ the time when I don’t know it’s happening. I can’t do anything without the knowledge that someone, somewhere has a phone pointed right at me.

“The truth is—I’m exhausted and I’m scared. I’m exhausted from living my life, not acknowledging the fact that I’ve received death threats—which is crazy, by the way. I’m so tired of people coming out of the woodwork, telling me that I’m ruining the entire game of baseball just because once every third game, I throw a ball while in the possession of a uterus. And last night I went back to the home of my teammate because I knew it would be safe there. I’m done worrying about what you people think about that. Because the truth is so much less sensational than the garbage you people will make up about me.” Ginny’s speech ends as abruptly as it began. She swallows around the lump in her throat that’s taken hold.

“This press conference is over.” She tells the reporters, turning about face and marching off the small stage.

There’s a precious moment of silence and then a roar of voices crying out from the press.

But she’s gone.

 

\-----

 

Oscar’s leaning over, hands braced against his knees, trying to return his heart to a normal rhythm.

“I’ll be damned.” Al’s mouth curls lightly, a proud look in his eyes.

Eliot ends the recording on his phone, Amelia’s hand curls tightly around his wrist, wordlessly communicating with him. “I’ve got it.” He nods, taking off at a run out the side door.

Amelia takes a deep breath, pulling her hair up into a ponytail; Mike looks between her and Oscar, complete opposites in this moment. She pats Al on the shoulder, “Our girl’s growing up.”

Al makes an affirming noise, “Couldn’t have said it better myself.” He nods.

Mike though, Mike is pretty much speechless.

He isn’t reeling quite so much as Oscar, who they leave behind as he and Amelia peel off to go find Ginny.

When they find her, they have to pass through the dead-silent locker room where every member of the team are silently staring up at the television now broadcasting Ginny’s statement. She’s in her locker room, sorting through a few pairs of cleats and checking the laces.

“Ginny,” Amelia announces their presence, entering the room.

Ginny’s still got an old shoe in her hands as Amelia wraps her in a huge hug. Mike has no idea who is the most surprised by this; Ginny, Mike, or Amelia. He can see her face over Amelia’s shoulder, eyes huge for a second before she catches on and squeezes Amelia with her free arm.

Amelia pulls away for a minute, looking down at the younger woman intensely. “You were perfect.”

Ginny’s mouth opens and closes a few times, clearly surprised by that statement. “But you said, ‘always read from the copy’ and I _very_ clearly didn’t.”

Amelia pats her cheek, something Ginny looks intensely alarmed by. But the older woman has an almost dreamy look on her face.

“I’ve got work to do.” Amelia tells her, nodding once before she turns around and leaves the room.

Ginny and Mike stare at each other from across the room in an awkward moment of silence.

It becomes too much, so Mike says the first thing that comes into his head.

“You give really good speeches.” It comes out in a dumbfounded way.

She nods her head slightly, her brown eyes narrowing a bit. “I want a key to the house. I’m sick of having to have you buzz me in like you’re the Great and Powerful Oz.”

All he can do is nod.

 

\------

 

_Earlier that morning_

 

_Mike wakes up ten minutes before his alarm is set to go off. Somehow he knows without even having to open his eyes. He just gets that sense._

_You know how that happens?_

_He wants to lay there and languish with his eyes closed, because from the moment that alarm goes off, he’ll be moving all day._

_Someone sighs beside him._

_Mike blinks open his eyes, and he’s met with a hand._

_A small, but strong hand with short nails, calluses down each finger, and thin dark brown lines running across a lighter palm. It’s resting on his pillow, the owner a few feet away, is asleep, her arm outstretched over the covers._

_He loses those ten minutes just looking. And they’ve spent countless hours now pressed next to each other in seats on the bus. Sitting on the bench. Stretching out on the mat. Spotting each other with weights._

_It’s sort of preposterous. He’s seen her sleeping before, usually ends up being the one to shake her awake when they arrive at the hotel for an away game. This is no different. Her face is just as slack. Her hair escapes its ponytail holder the same way._

_But her hand is reaching across the distance between them, resting on his pillow and at this angle he can see every line that crosses her palm. If he believed in that boardwalk palm-reading bullshit, he’d be able to read the story of her past and future across her skin._

_They both startle when the alarm sounds. That hand snaps closed into a fist as Ginny recoils and throws the comforter over her head, trying to escape the sound. Mike hits the alarm, but he can’t bring himself to get out of bed for a minute. Instead he lays on his back, staring up at the ceiling, vaguely feeling the bed’s movement as Ginny burrows down._

_But if he doesn’t move now, he never will._

_So he gets up and makes them coffee, setting a mug down on the bedside table, peeling away the corner of the comforter to reveal her grumpy face. “I still have a box of Lucky Charms taking up space in my pantry, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get working on them.”_

_Ginny makes an annoyed noise, scooting up the bed and reaching out for the coffee._

_Mike takes a shower, and stands in the stall for much longer than usual, zoning out._

_Absently, he thinks about lifelines._


	8. Chapter 8

#CanYouBeMoreSpecific is trending in California within the hour. By the time the game happens that night, every major news outlet has been broadcasting Ginny’s statement every hour on the hour. Her phone is going off so much that she ends up just shutting it off and stuffing it in a drawer in the locker room. She doesn’t want to see it right now. It’s a distraction and honestly she shouldn’t care which celebrities think she did a good thing.

Blip however, seems to have turned into her social secretary. He keeps calling out celebrities who have mentioned her in the media.

“Rihanna just called you a boss bitch!” Blip yells from across the locker room while she’s flipping through her batter stats. She’s not even pitching tonight, but it never hurts to be prepared.

Butch whistles, “I’d love to—“

“No, I’m not introducing you to Rihanna.” Ginny deadpans, knowing immediately where this is going.

That being said, when Serena Williams releases a statement applauding Ginny for shining a light on the double standard female professional athletes face with the media, Ginny casually leaves the room and then has a silent freak-out in a closet.

Not her finest moment. But she’s got a reputation to protect and if she kept it together meeting Mike, she can’t let it slip now that she’s a huge nerd.

She catches sight of Amelia throughout the day, darting around the complex on her phone, Eliot seemingly running in the opposite direction, tracking down the fastest Wi-Fi signal in the building.

Ginny eventually sneaks off to the gym where she can hopefully stretch out in peace, only to find Mike there, a furrow between his eyebrows as he straightens his legs out and reaches for a foot.

“It’s crazy out there. I think I saw Oscar in three different shirts today, he’s a sweaty mess.” She greets him, plopping down beside him.

Mike makes an affirming noise. “I think they were counting on you to sell tickets, and now they’ve got like a Katniss thing going on.”

She rolls her eyes, “I have no intention of taking down the Capital. I just want to play baseball and not have every question I get asked to have to do with the fact that I’m a woman. When was the last time someone asked you how being a guy affected your game?”

Mike shakes his head, “Well, I think you’re referring to reporters. But if you’re refereeing to my game, can you be more specific?” he raises his eyebrows at her a few times in quick succession.

“I’m moving out. You’re the worst.” She tells him, in a flat tone.

Mike holds up both his hands in surrender. “No, you can’t do that. Mrs. Hernandez will come with you. It’ll be this whole thing. I’ll have to find a new housekeeper to do practically nothing except make me Mexican food.”

“Yeah. Okay.” She tells him.

 

\-----

 

There’s a key sitting on the shelf of her dressing room. She knows without asking that it goes to Mike’s house. She doesn’t have any other keys. So she doesn’t have a keychain. Ginny settles for putting it in the front pocket of her backpack.

 

\-----

 

For once, it’s actually great to not play a game. Ginny sits on the bench and focuses on watching the plays, congratulating the guys when they come back to the dugout, and observing how Al and Buck work together to guide the team.

She’s not out of the woods, there’s a deep seed of anxiety still blooming in her chest at the idea of what happened the night before. But getting everything off her chest earlier in the day makes her feel lighter.

“Stop looking at me like that.” Mike tells her, coming back in from the field, pulling off his helmet. “You’re looking at me like you found out I’m dying and now you have to appreciate every moment we have together.”

“That was oddly specific.” Blib says in a concerned voice.

Matt gives him a playful shove in the direction of the dugout.

They watch the rest of the game, and Ginny sticks around in the dugout for the fireworks afterwards.

 

\-----

 

Lo and behold they have three days off. Three glorious days off in which Ginny has nothing planned. Seriously. Amelia’s taken mercy on her. They have every news outlet begging for an interview with the girl who seemingly singlehandedly struck a major blow to the way that the media interacts with women.

She heard that Amelia was having a meeting with the press with Oscar’s blessing to lay out a new set of rules not just for what they’re allowed to ask Ginny, but all the rest of the players. She’s hoping with any luck they will pass on to other teams.

Amelia seems content to let Ginny have a break because she’s, “Better than Clooney.”

Ginny will take it.

 

\-----

 

Someone arranged for Ginny’s stuff to be delivered to Mike’s house, which is great because otherwise she would be living in whatever clothing she could steal from the gift shop and Amelia’s yoga pants are more for style than athletic performance.

It’s not much, but there is a sense of comfort when the bags are delivered to Mike’s place. He lets her know they’ve arrived by throwing her duffle bag of clothes onto the bed while she’s still asleep under the covers.

Ginny lets out a screech and goes tumbling off the side of the mattress, taking the whole comforter with her.

Mike, now realizing that if she landed on her wrist he’s going to be murdered, runs to the side of the bed where she disappeared.

“I thought it would be funny but now I feel terrible.” Mike exclaims on his way over, gingerly setting down her backpack by the door.

“You are such an asshole!” Ginny yells, her curly head emerging from the covers.

Mrs. Hernandez’s voice calls up from the stairs. “Ginny? Are you okay?”

Mike’s eyes go wide as Ginny wrenches her arm free from the tangle of bedding and wrangles her hair away from her face.

“No! Someone threw luggage at me and I rolled off the bed!”

There’s a pregnant pause and then the same voice rings out in a stern tone.

“Michael, come down here.”

Mike mouths several obscenities before turning on his heel and exiting the guestroom.

Well. It’s actually Ginny’s room when he thinks about it.

 

\-----

The doorbell rings a few hours later as Mike’s hiding in the game room. Ginny’s actually out by the pool with a book and a glass of lemonade. Mrs. Hernandez made her lunch. But Mike’s still in the dog house so he made himself a sad sandwich and called it a day.

No one else makes a move to go get it so in the end Mike answers the door. Two slightly perplexed men are standing at the front door, both holding clipboards. A large van and a larger truck are out on the curb.

“You two don’t look like Girl Scouts.” Mike says, looking the two guys up and down.

The first guy pipes up, “I was called in from Secure Solutions by,” he looks down at his clipboard. “Amelia Lawson, your wife. She wants to have your security system upgraded.”

“My wife, huh?” Mike smirks, resigning himself to the idea that Amelia’s crafty enough to convince a security company that she’s his wife so that they’ll do the work without his go-ahead.

“She’s a spirited lady.” The guy nods, holding out the clipboard. “But she said you wanted the best. Alarm, motion censoring, remote controlled perimeter cameras, and a panic button installed in the guest room. The total’s right there, you just have to authorize us to bill you for the installation.”

Mike stifles a cough at the number on the paper before him, and then reminds himself of all the cars he’s purchased and never driven. He signs on the dotted line. It’s for Ginny and will seriously cut down on the groupie crime in the area.

“What Amelia wants, Amelia gets.” Mike sighs, handing back the clipboard to the guy.

“I’ll just go get my things,” he says, jerking his head towards the van.

Mike turns to the other guy now. “Did Amelia send you too?” he asks, worried what the answer will be.

“Nope,” He looks down at his clipboard nervously. “I’ve got a delivery for Ginny Baker.” He pauses. “And I don’t need you to sign anything, but my kid is a huge fan and—“

Mike takes the clipboard and signs an autograph for the guy’s son. When Ginny shows up a couple minutes later to check out what is going on, he hands her the clipboard wordlessly and she knows what to do.

“I’ll show you where it’s going.” Ginny tells the guy, leading him into the house.

Over the course of an hour, one of the men works on the security system while the other brings in several huge boxes and pieces of furniture. He has a small team working with him. And little by little Mike realizes the full weight of what’s happening.

She’s moving in.

He heads up to Ginny’s room where Ginny’s working to fit the giant comforter into an equally huge dark blue duvet cover. Mike’s white Egyptian cotton sheets are in a pile by the bathroom door. Mike takes the corners of the duvet cover and holds them up so it’s easier for Ginny to guide the comforter inside.

“So I guess my sheets aren’t nice enough for you, huh?” he can’t help but give her shit about them.

Ginny rolls her eyes. Her hair is pulled up on top of her head in a messy bun. She looks like she’s been steadily working for a while now that the delivery guys have finished. “They aren’t exactly practical. And I won’t miss the acute sense of panic once a month that I’m going to destroy them.”

Mike clears his through, “Yup—yeah. Didn’t think that one through.”

She smiles, one corner of her mouth drifting upward. “It’s cool.”

Together they get the duvet cover all set and pull it over the bed, where a dark blue fitted sheet and a matching flat sheet are neatly laid out. Ginny throws two pillows at Mike, he dutifully rests them on one side of the bed while Ginny sets two more out on the other side.

Mike takes a moment to look around the room, a new sleek grey dresser rests against the far wall, there are piles of a lighter blue fabric by the window along with a huge curtain rod in two pieces, a patterned area rug is rolled up, standing by the door, and in the corner is a comfortable looking chair and an empty bookcase. There’s also a random assortment of artwork, knick knacks, and practical little things strewn about.

“I gave Evelyn the go-ahead.” Ginny says, gesturing to it all. “If I’m staying I figured I’d like to make this place a bit more—“ she takes a moment to think about her next word.

“You,” Mike pipes in for her. “A bit more you. You’re welcome to move anything you want into the house. Seriously. Except maybe not like a coffin or something that’s going to look really creepy at night.”

“Nothing creepy.” Ginny agrees, giving him a thumbs-up.

Over the next several hours Mike and Ginny work together to put up the curtains that go the whole way across the giant window. They’re not heavy enough to block out all of the bright sunlight, but they do give her an option between sun and absolute darkness. Plus they make the room look less like a psych ward and more like a home.

They lay out the carpet over the poured concrete floor near the corner of the room. What few books Ginny has, she puts out on the bookcase. Mike scavenges a room in his house of the standing lamp to put near the leather chair. He also locates an ottoman that’s never been used and drags it up there to act as a foot rest.

Together they figure out how to program the alarm clock, and after a solid twenty minute effort, they’ve got it figured out. Ginny throws her duffle into the closet and sets about actually hanging up the nicer things that she owns. While she does that, Mike carefully cuts away the packing material around the dresser. He hangs up the artwork of abstract cityscapes where Ginny tells him, only grumbling slightly around the nails he has stuck between his lips as he works.

Eventually they have everything put away as well as they can. Mike decides Ginny should be the one to put away the rest of her things and decide where all the decorative pieces go. Mike Lawson is a master of many things, but deciding the best place for a vase isn’t one of them.

Mrs. Hernandez calls them downstairs for dinner where she’s laid out a veritable feast of rice, beans, grilled chicken, salad, and homemade tortillas with all the fixings for tacos.

“I’m happy you’re going to be staying with us.” She tells Ginny, reaching up to touch Ginny’s cheek with a hand that smells like lime. “Someone has to keep an eye on him,” she jerks her head over her shoulder at Mike, “when I’m not here.”

Ginny just kind of smiles and nods, taking the plate Mrs. H offers her. Ginny digs in to the food while Mike stands there awkwardly.

“Fine, I’ll make your plate.” Mrs. Hernandez waves a hand at him, taking a plate from the stack of two on the counter. She carefully makes up a plate with three tacos, double chicken, corn salsa, lettuce, a sprinkle of cheese, and hot sauce. She adds a scoop of salad, some rice and beans and hands it to him carefully.

“You did a good thing today, Michael.” She tells him quietly enough that Ginny won’t hear from where she’s standing with her head in the fridge.

If Mike blushes at that, well, he’s just going to blame it in the three hours of free manual labor he put in on his day off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual thanks for all the amazing feedback. I hope you all had a happy holiday season and got some rest! Thanks for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The obligatory long conversation happens.

She can tell Mike wants to talk about what happened at the beach house. Hours spent communicating with nothing but hand signals and eye contact have given Ginny a firm handle on what Mike Lawson looks like when he’s trying to figure out what to say.

Like many of their expectantly deep conversations, they happen while one of them pretends absolutely nothing is going on.

In this case, Mike has the hood to the old jeep in his garage popped and half of his body disappears into the engine block.

Ginny arrives under the guise of making popcorn in the specific popcorn microwave outside the house because Mike is a freak of nature who is convinced the smell of fake butter can never be purged from a home.

He barely stops himself from banging his head really hard against the hood when she closes the door behind her, two beers in one hand and the unpopped popcorn package in the other.

“Ow—shit.” Mike swears, knocking a rag off the side of the car along with a socket wrench. He pops up from under the hood, his eyes searching for the source of the sound, landing on Ginny. “One of those better be for me.” He tells her firmly, holding out a greasy hand for one of the bottles, which Ginny hands over.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing?” She asks, surreptitiously peeking around him to get a look at the engine.

“I’ll have you know that I rescued this car from obscurity in the junk yard,” Mike pats the side of it lovingly before twisting off the cap on his beer. “We were so poor that I spent a whole summer with a book I stole from the library—evil, I know—just to try to get it running.”

“And did you,” She asks, opening her own beer, “did you get it running?”

“Hell no.” Mike answers, his voice going slightly higher and he tips the beer back. “But I like to pretend I know how to check the transmission and the sparkplugs.”

Ginny smiles into her own beer, thinking back to her dad working on their truck in the summertime, on his back in the driveway working underneath while Ginny practiced in the yard. He would call out to her if she went 30 seconds without throwing something.

She sits up on the counter along the wall, beside a large tool cabinet that looks brand new. “You kinda disappeared after dinner and I feel like you want to talk about what happened at two nights ago. And I don’t really want to talk about it, at all. But my therapist tells me that bottling up like I was before makes me unfocused, and honestly, I understand that now. So I think you should talk and for once I won’t say anything, unless you ask me a question, deal?” Ginny takes a sip of her beer and maybe regrets not bringing the whole six-pack, because this could take a while.

Mike looks a little shaken as he leans back against the car, the hand holding the beer reflexively crossing his chest, and the other reaching up to run through his beard—classic Lawson Stress Maneuver. He pretty much succeeds in rubbing engine grease into his beard and a few smudges onto his cheek.

She doesn’t have the heart to tell him.

“Yeah, okay.” Mike clears his throat, sips his beer and looks her up and down for a moment. “I was pretty fucking scared I was going to crash the car two nights ago.”

She goes a little cold at that, one of her hands wrapping around the edge of the counter beneath her.

“I mean, I didn’t because I was trying really hard not to. But it was probably one of the hardest things I’ve done—getting you home after, seeing you—“ He makes a vague gesture. “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. Are you okay? You don’t have to be okay, you can be confused or scared or whatever you want because it’s your brain.”

Ginny reminds herself to tell the truth. It’s easy to tell people what they want to hear, but it’s hard on the person lying. It just compounds the problem.

“I’m compartmentalizing.” Ginny says, nodding. “I’m okay right now, because I’m focused on the our house, on moving in. I’m thinking about our out of town games coming up and on the playoffs. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t start crying in the shower this morning or that I didn’t sleep well last night because I was thinking about all of the giant windows in this house.” Her heart is beating very fast in her chest at the rush of saying what she actually thinks. It’s similar to the press conference, but she’s not frustrated.

“Fuck the windows Ginny, I will turn this place into the house from ‘I Am Legend’ if it’ll help. Huge metal shutters and everything.” Mike sets the beer down on the roof of the Jeep and wrings his hands. “I just want you to feel safe. Because I’ve never been scared like that. No one’s ever invaded my place.”

“Well, it happened to me.” Ginny says. “Neither one of us likes it, but I’m getting attention because I’m a woman and pretty pathetically, that comes with whole lot of violent crazies. I should have seen it coming, I shouldn’t have gotten rid of my security detail. There are a lot of things I should have done, but I can’t change that now. I can’t board up the walls every time someone invades my privacy because I would never stop hammering.” Mike looks down at the ground, wringing the rag in his hands.

“I feel pretty useless right now, Baker.” Mike says to the ground. “I feel like I’m a little too late every time something happens to you. The photos. The panic attack before the party. The time you went AWOL—I was at that party, how did I not realize you weren’t handling it all? The thing with the house. I can’t get out in front of it.”

“There’s nothing you and I can do except react.” Ginny says, kicking her heels against the cabinet doors under her. “And you did exactly the right thing: you got me out of there, you let me sleep in your bed, and you didn’t open your mouth so I didn’t think about the last part too much.”

She thinks about how warm his room feels in comparison to the rest of the house, how there are nuggets hidden in this house that reveal the real Mike Lawson and not the guy that girls line up to meet outside the players door at Petco Park. Ginny absently thinks about the square-framed glasses resting on the bedside table.

“Well, whatever you need.” Mike looks up finally, there’s something hard to read in his eyes. It looks like a little defeat.

“Sorry to tell you, Lawson, but when you invited me into your life you made this a two way street. I don’t live my life oblivious as to how to affects others. There are too many people counting on me. So if _you_ need something, I better see you open that damn mouth of yours and say it. You’ve got enough practice talking for three lifetimes.” Ginny tells him. It’s probably on of the harder things she’s ever done in a friendship, demanding to know what Mike needs.

“Yeah, okay.” Mike throws the rag over the edge of the hood. “I slept like shit, too. And you’re right, this house is the kind of place a horror movie takes place in. But I really like it, so it’s not going anywhere. I wanna inflict real violence on whoever broke into your place and scared you, and I wanna threaten real violence on the reporters who made you feel like you had to leave in the first place.” His voice rings out in the garage, echoing against the concrete floor and the bare walls. “And I thought you said I was going to do most of the talking.”

“You are such an asshole.” Ginny tells him fondly.

“When the ex called me that, it didn’t have quite the same ring to it.” Mike shakes his head at himself. He throws back the rest of his beer. “And if we’re laying it all out in the open right now I might as well just tell you that you’re not just my teammate, or a rookie, or even my roommate.” He pauses, looking down at the beer in his hand. “I’m going to regret saying this last part.”

Ginny’s chest inexplicably flutters, the fleeting warning that happens on the mound before she has to hit the deck or risk taking a baseball to the face by a line drive.

“You’re my friend and I don’t want to hear Blip parroting this at me in the showers next week or ever.” Mike drags on, rolling his eyes and switching to looking up at the light in the ceiling.

“Spit it out, Mike.” Ginny urges him.

“You are my partner.” Mike does indeed spit it out and then groans softly. He closes his eyes tightly, clamping onto the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. “I don’t even know what that means.”

Ginny slips down from the counter, leaving her beer bottle behind.

He shifts nearly imperceptibly when she steps into his space and wraps her arms around his middle, holding tightly. “It’s okay, I don’t either.” She feels him draw in a sharp breath. The back of his shirt is slightly damp with sweat wicking though his t-shirt, warming against her forearms. Mike Lawson is a solid thing she holds against herself.

Nothing happens, and then at the moment she’s about to step back, his hand curls around the back of her head, guiding it further into his shoulder, and the other arm winds around her back, drawing her closer.

She doesn’t like being touched unexpectedly. There are too many people who believe they have the right to touch her just because she’s there. But instead of the instinctive gasp of breath at the touch, Ginny finds herself sighing as she relaxes more fully into his arms.

He really is quite good at this.

“I’m sorry it happened.” Mike tells her kind of lamely. “But I’m also a total dick, because it means you’re staying here, with me.”

“You can’t get rid of me that easily.” Ginny says into the material of his shirt. He smells like he always does, like the ultra masculine deodorant she hates on everyone else, the gum he’s always chewing, and Icy Hot for his old-ass joints.

“Good.” Mike says, and she can feel his hand curling a bit into her hair. It reminds her of the last time he did that, when she felt out of control in the front seat of his car as they sped away from the house. Only this time she can focus it, and the warm comfort she feels at his touch.

She doesn’t tell him he’s getting her hair dirty and she just washed it this morning.

There are things that matter much more in the long run.

Like extraditing themselves from a hug that goes on for much longer than she expected.

And telling him in no uncertain terms that if either one of them expect to get any sleep, they’re gonna have to bunk together again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for being patient while I got through the holiday hangover. I'm happy to report that I'm officially done with school and thatI hope I can devote more of my time to working on this fic. All of your comments make me so happy and I want to thank you again for being the best fandom there is.

**Author's Note:**

> I love kudos and comments! Thanks for reading!


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